


Ficlets From the XMFC Kink Meme

by Yahtzee



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angry Sex, Bad Sex, Cancer, Dubious Consent, Ficlet Collection, First Time, Fluff, Frottage, Guilt, Kink Meme, Multi, Plot What Plot, Polyamory, Pregnancy, Pseudo-Incest, Rape Fantasy, Rough Sex, Sad, Self-Harm, Stairs, Unrequited Love, Wheelchairs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-05
Updated: 2011-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:26:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 19,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahtzee/pseuds/Yahtzee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wanted to archive some of my shorter ficlets here but didn't see the point of putting them up separately. Each chapter will have the prompt as notes at the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sex After Paralysis

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt: "Charles in the movie is gentle but quite assertive. He knows what he wants and goes for it.
> 
> After he's paralysed he is determined not to let it stop him from anything including having a sex life. So he makes research and experiments with himself and maybe just thinks a lot about what he can do, and then instructs Eric.
> 
> Bonus if Eric is reluctant to do something because he thinks it can hurt Charles and Charles admonishes him for it."
> 
>  _Additional note: My assessment of what Charles can and can't do and feel is based on a rough guess of the injury site as shown in the movie and what reading I've been able to do online since. If I've got this wrong, I'm sincerely sorry and would welcome further information._

Charles never knew it was possible to be so weary of kindness.

Ever since the injury, everyone has been so bloody _kind._ Hank has thought up more innovative wheelchair designs in the past two months than all humanity has managed in the past few millennia. Raven wants to sit around and reminisce about childhood more than she ever did before, assuming Charles would rather think of the past than the present. And Erik --

God, Erik. He was on the verge of walking out before he realized how serious Charles’ injuries were, on the verge of falling off the wrong side of the tightrope he walks between righteousness and vengeance. In some ways the angry warrior is Erik’s truest, deepest self. But he has put all of that aside. He has devoted himself to Charles’ every need.

Well, every need but one. Erik’s been too kind to bring that up.

Charles thinks it’s time to get past kindness and get back to real life.

That night, as usual, they are sitting in the study. The kids have gone to bed. Erik is humoring Charles by allowing him to listen to all of “Aida” on the hi-fi while they play chess. Although Erik generally plays at a higher level, Charles is having a good night and is on the verge of claiming the black king with a mere pawn.

“Will you resign?” Charles says.

Erik scowls at him, a mockery of his own black moods so exact that Charles has to laugh. “We always play to the end.”

“I know. But I thought – I thought we might do something else with the rest of the evening.”

“Please tell me there’s not another opera on after this.”

“No such fate awaits you.” Charles runs one finger along Erik’s king, “I was thinking, tonight – we should go to bed. We should make love again.”

**

Erik is greatly startled – no, Charles thinks, shocked. They’re not beginning well. That’s all right; he expects they both have a learning curve ahead.

“Charles – ” Erik is so at a loss that Charles can’t even read the thoughts he’s not saying aloud. He could if Erik knew what they were, but he doesn’t. Finally, he says, “Can you?”

“I won’t be able to do everything I could before.” It takes some bravery to say this without longing. Thinking of the way he and Erik were before the accident – the crazy things they tried, how carefree they both were about the miracle that is a healthy, fully functional body – it hurts. It will always hurt. But Charles refuses to lead a life fenced in by memory. “But there’s a lot we could still do. Besides – I want to be close to you.” He reaches out to brush his hand against Erik’s cheek as he whispers, “I want to make you come.”

That awakens a flicker of familiar heat within Erik, but there’s still all that damned kindness in the way. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Ah, so he has thought about it. Charles never picked up on that before; maybe Erik had thrown his sex life on the funeral pyre as penance for what happened to Charles that day. He can imagine Erik looking down at him in the hospital bed and trying to carve out this essential part of himself. Erik has always gone for the grand gesture.

But Charles has no intention of turning into some bloodless martyr. “You won’t hurt me. I’ve done some research – ”

“You and research!”

“—and I think I know what to do.” Charles gives Erik his naughtiest smile. “Besides, you wouldn’t believe what you can buy from the right mail-order catalogs.”

That flicker within Erik is slowly building to a flame. “All right,” he murmurs. “Let’s try.”

**

The elevator won’t be fully installed for another few weeks yet, so Erik has to carry Charles to the top floor of the mansion, as he has every night. Charles is grateful for the wealth that allows him to plan for an elevator, to have one or more of Hank’s amazing chairs on each floor.

But he’s also grateful for this experience of being held in Erik’s arms.

Tonight, instead of dropping him off at the chair at the top of the stairwell, Erik walks with him all the way to the bedroom. “I feel like a heroine in a romance novel,” Charles says.

“Heaven forbid.” Erik lays him atop the covers, then goes for his Charles’ shoes and socks – though Charles is capable of readying himself for bed most nights, sometimes Erik does it. But tonight this is meant to be more than a chore.

“Erik,” Charles says softly. “Come here.”

Erik pauses. He puts the shoes on the floor, then crawls onto the bed with Charles – not beside him, at the discreet other edge of the bed he’s maintained thus far, but almost over him, his arms braced on either side of Charles’ shoulders. Charles slides his hands along Erik’s back as their mouths come together in a kiss.

They’ve kissed since the accident, but not like this. Charles slips his tongue between Erik’s lips and relishes the hungry way Erik’s mouth opens over his. His arms tighten around Erik, the better to feel the resistance of that sculpted back. When they come apart, Charles whispers, “Undress me like you mean it.”

From the flare of desire he feels within Erik, he knows Erik intends to comply.

It’s not as easy getting naked any more – simple things are complicated now, Charles can’t fully cooperate, and both he and Erik have had to get past any embarrassment. But Erik’s hands are practiced, and tonight Charles keeps bringing him back for kisses, keeps touching Erik as he works. When at last Erik is looking down at his naked body – with longing now instead of mere kindness – Charles feels his heartbeat quickening. “Now,” he says, keeping his voice low and yet commanding. “Strip for me.”

Erik raises an eyebrow – challenged by Charles’ dominance, and yet titillated too. His silence is his surrender. Slowly he disrobes, belt then shirt then slacks then boxers, until he stands there open to Charles’ gaze.

God, he’s missed this so much – just the sight of Erik, naked, beautiful and hard for him.

**

Erik joins Charles on the bed. Their mouths come together in a hot, eager kiss as Erik embraces him.

As much as Charles has missed stroking Erik’s back, really, he’s got better things to do with his hands right now.

He wraps his fingers around Erik’s cock and is rewarded with a sharp, indrawn gasp. “Come up here,” he whispers as he pushes himself up on an elbow. “Kneel in front of me.”

Erik grips the carved oaken headboard as he does what Charles wants, bringing his cock delectably close to Charles’ mouth. Charles takes him in, and there’s the taste of Erik, the feel of him against lips and tongue, the smell of sex. Better still is the sound Erik makes – a moan so ragged that Charles knows Erik missed this as badly as he did. Even more.

Charles curls his power around Erik’s mind, wordlessly asking permission. His hands still gripping the headboard as though for dear life, Erik whispers, “Yes.”

Then he plunges into Erik’s thoughts, feels what he feels.

And oh, this is difficult, because it’s both glorious and painful – the sensation Charles is been teaching himself to live without is back now, veiled as Erik and yet just as hot and good: the slick caress of tongue against cock, the undulating pressure of an open, waiting mouth, and the countless little flickers of blood and nerve and bone that play their part but aren’t recognized until they’re gone.

Charles is glad he can feel this. He hates that he still misses it. But it’s all who he is now, all what he must accept and come to embrace.

Just as Erik’s excitement begins to peak, Charles puts his hand on the curve of Erik’s pelvic bone and pushes backward. Mouth again free, he says, “Not yet.”

Erik swears in German. “Charles, please.”

“I have a feeling that from now on, I come when you come,” Charles says. That may or may not be true – the literature on the subject is disappointingly scanty and clinical – but his gift gives him certain guarantees he doesn’t intend to do without. “And I’m not nearly done with you yet.”

“Tyrant,” Erik says, his voice turning the word into a caress. He crawls down, back over Charles, breathing in sharply as Charles’ hand finds his erection.

As he rubs his thumb along the ridge and the head, he murmurs, “The Vaseline’s where it always was.”

Erik goes for it so fast that he fumbles with the lid. Charles smiles as Erik’s fingers scoop out a generous amount, which he then smears against Charles’ fingers – the same gesture as before. They’re finding their old rhythms, turning them into something new.

He starts again on Erik, now gratifyingly slippery in his grip, but before they can get too carried away, he says the words that have frightened him most: “Touch me.”

**

Erik pauses – Charles had known he would – but he settles beside him and does what’s asked.

Frustratingly, Charles’ body doesn’t just stop beneath his wound. There’s still sensation there, even occasionally the capacity for some small movement – but it’s all unpredictable and invariably very weak. He can tell that Erik is stroking him, but so little of it reaches his brain. It might be a distant memory.

However, the old jokes about men having two brains turn out to have some validity. Charles’ head may remain only distantly aware that Erik is rubbing him off, but his cock knows it very well.

“Ahhh,” Erik breathes out as Charles begins to harden in his hand. “I didn’t think – didn’t know – ”

“It’s different.” Charles grips Erik a little tighter, enjoying the fact that they’re sharing this experience. “But I like it.” And he does. The pure physical sensation of it may be denied him, but the hormones circulating through his whole body are doing their trick. His skin’s growing more sensitive; his heartbeat is pounding now.

This particular pleasure might be very temporary, though. Erections for men in his condition rarely last long. Which is where the mail order catalogs come in. “In the bedside table – the envelope – ”

Erik manages to grab it without letting go of Charles or slipping from Charles’ grip, a nearly acrobatic feat that makes Charles grin. The grin widens as he sees Erik open the envelope and stare.

“Naughty boy,” Erik says as he pulls out the cock ring. “You got around more at Oxford than you’d told me.”

“Slip it on me,” Charles demands. He’s so firm now, so long, and he wants it to last. “Now.”

Erik does so. The pressure is still distant, but Charles can see his cock thickening as the blood gathers.

So Charles lets go of Erik’s cock – ignoring Erik’s groan of protest – and slides two well-lubed fingers inside Erik’s ass.

Erik’s surprise floods through Charles with his arousal, but he goes with it, moving to welcome the pressure of Charles’ fingers inside him. Charles makes this next more of an order than anything else he’s said tonight: “I want you to ride me.”

“God, yes.”

Deep within Erik, Charles can feel a flicker of uncertainty – he’s no more sure this will work than Charles is himself – but he’s willing to try. Willing to fail, if need be. That’s the reassurance Charles needs to go on.

Erik straddles Charles, his muscular, scarred body so open to him that Charles could weep. Then he takes Charles’ engorged cock in his hand and slowly settles down onto it.

Again, the distance—but still, it’s something, however faint, and following close behind is the wave of sensation sweeping through Erik. He’s being filled up, stretched wide, and he’s missed this, missed it so much, please Charles –

Then Erik starts to move.

Charles braces one arm at Erik’s hip and captures his erect, bobbing cock in the other hand. The two kinds of stimulation at once make Erik reel – Charles can feel it, a wave of dizziness sweep forward from the back of his head. Erik’s hands go to Charles chest, fingertips teasing his nipples. He always tended to ignore the nipples before – Charles too – and why did they do that? It’s delicious.

As Charles’ pleasure enters him in turn, Erik pants, “Won’t – last long. It’s only – I missed you – ”

“I know, I know.” Charles’ body above the hips is wild now, hot and flushed and well aware what’s going on. “Please – Erik, please – ”

Erik keeps riding him; Charles keeps massaging him, and the pressure building within Erik is too great not to break –

Erik’s orgasm smashes through Charles’ mind, a wave of pure pleasure that makes him cry out. To his astonishment, it’s followed by an echo – his own body coming, almost mute in his cock but still sending waves of sensation from waist to brain, still nearly blowing off the top of his skull.

For a moment they can only hang on to one another. Then Erik slips away from him, tenderly removing the cock ring before he does anything to see to himself. Charles lies there, gasping, almost overcome by the physical and emotional enormity of what’s happened.

When Erik curls next to him, Charles whispers, “It won’t always be that easy.”

“Since when were you and I ever about ‘easy’? My God, Charles. Forgive me for not realizing – for not coming to you before.”

“It’s difficult,” Charles admits. It’s easier to admit now that they’ve had this night together, now that Erik is warm and sweaty and satisfied in his arms. “But not everything has to change.”

Erik’s hand cups his chin. “The most important things – those will never change.”

END


	2. Powers Gone Awry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "While having sex, Erik gets carried away and ends up breaking, levitating and bending every metal item in the room/mansion. Maybe even manages to tear down a few walls too. Charles wants to be frustrated, but he just finds it incredibly sexy and ends up even more turned on than usual."

From the beginning, they've worried about Charles' powers giving them away. Nothing like everyone in the mansion having simultaneous orgasms to let them know the game's afoot. Charles controls himself as best he can during their rare-but-delicious daytime interludes, and at night -- well, the occasional erotic dream never hurt anyone.

They never thought to worry about Erik's powers.

But this night -- this night would have overcome stronger man even than Erik.

Charles' room. Charles' bed. Clutching at each other frantically, kissing until their lips cut their teeth and swelled, until each kiss hurt, but unable to stop. No give and take tonight, no negotiations with words or even the mind -- Charles has taken over just by will alone, and Erik is glad to surrender.

He clutches the bedpost, feet on the floor as Charles kneels between his thighs, going down on him yet again. All night it's been like this, Charles bringing Erik to the very brink. the to the moment where he can feel himself about to come, and then pulling back. It's almost like torture, except that Erik knows the reward is at hand. Every build is greater than the one before; release, when it comes, will be extraordinary.

With his free hand he caresses Charles' face, feeling his jaw and cheek work as he sucks Erik to the brink, and then --

"Damn you," Erik growls as Charles pulls away. Charles, maddeningly cocky, pushes Erik backward onto the bed and rolls him over. Erik spreads his thighs, groans as Charles starts getting him ready. Yes, this, yes. The way his body's singing reminds him of the way he feels when he's surrounded by steel or silver, something beautiful --

( _Downstairs in the china cabinet, the Xavier family silver begins to vibrate in its velvet-lined box, causing the crystal wine flutes stored above to dance on their shelves. The brass curtain rods begin to slowly turn, which makes the draperies flutter._ )

Charles grabs a handful of Erik's sweaty hair, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to make Erik groan. Then he feels Charles pushing inside, and _this_ is what he's wanted, this is what's he's needed --

And it's when everything everything begins to go haywire.

Charles starts slow, gains speed. Erik tries to hang on, tries not to come until Charles does -- whether to be closer to him or to beat him, doesn't matter, just ignore the heart pounding and the pressure that's hitting him right there --

( _The cars outside rock on their tires. The kitchen becomes a clamor -- pots and pans tumbling free of the cabinets, the kettle jittering about on the iron burners. Every pipe in the plumbing constricts in sympathy with Erik's body and his blood, and there's a groaning in the walls that neither of them hears as they pant and swear and moan._ )

Charles is pounding into Erik now, and Erik wants it all and more than that, but he won't beg, he won't. He just pushes back, lets the ragged cries come from him without any shame, because he knows Charles loves it when he's loud and that more than anything will bring him closer to the edge. When Charles' fingers dig into his hips right at the bone, Erik knows this is it, this is it at last --

\-- and he sees his wristwatch and Charles' floating above the nightstand, as if in orbit of each other --

\-- the climax hits them like a tidal wave. Impossible to say who came first, whether Charles rode Erik's wave or shared his with Erik, either, both, it doesn't matter because it makes Erik reel with pleasure that fills his body, illuminates it, spreads outward until he feels as if they should've set the world on fire.

They collapse onto the bed, panting ... which is when Erik hears the creaking.

"What's that?" Charles whispers.

Erik sees the watches now lying on the floor and says, "I may have been -- carried away."

Which is when the water pipe bursts overhead.

Two hours later, when Erik's done soldering all the plumbing in the building, everything in the kitchen's been put away, the cars doublechecked for damage and several curious, drowsy teenagers told that it must have been a minor earthquake, no harm done, go back to sleep, the two of them finally get to return to Charles' bed. "Sorry," Erik says. "Don't know what got into me."

Charles doesn't actually make the dirty pun that naturally follows, just looks at Erik and thinks it. Erik doesn't know whether to groan or to laugh; he settles for a kiss.


	3. Sexy Chess Banter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Whoever wins their chess match calls the shots that night. This could be a one-off thing or a nightly ritual, and it doesn't matter to me who wins. But bonus points for sexy, competitive banter and suggestive comments about what they're going to do to each other when they win. Double bonus points if they both play dirty and cheat at every opportunity. *grins*"

Charles plays white. Erik plays black. That's one constant.

Another constant is that they play every single night, alone in the study. It ensures them privacy, for one thing; the kids all think chess is dull. How little they know.

The most important constant: Winner takes all.

It began as a joke -- Charles demanding some sort of a prize the first time he managed to defeat Erik, Erik saying he thought Charles had been rewarded enough the night before ... when he'd been on his hands and knees for Charles, unusually subservient and extremely turned-on. Charles had replied that there was no such thing as enough, not when it came to Erik, and by the way he thought Erik ought to start taking off his clothes.

It didn't really stop being a joke until Erik did take off his clothes, dark eyes hot as he rose to strip in front of Charles and waited for his next command.

By the next morning, when they were both sleepless and exhausted, and Erik demanded a rematch that night, the ritual was set. They've played on and on, games within games, ever since.

Tonight, Charles pushes a pawn forward one square, hardly looking at the chessboard. "I should win tonight."

"Trying to convince me to throw a game?" Erik moves his pawn two squares ahead. His shirt is open at the collar; the firelight flickers along the column of his throat.

"Why not? I'm a benevolent master," Charles murmurs. "I think you like being tied spreadeagle on the bed." Knight's pawn two squares forward, in a familiar diagonal he hopes Erik will recognize.

"I do. But you like it even more." Erik's grin is bright in the darkened study. "Because you're far too good a player to set up Fool's Mate if you didn't want to lose."

He pushes the black queen through the gate he made, in a long diagonal across the board. There's nowhere left for the white king to go.

Charles can't even pretend to be dismayed. He leans back in his chair as Erik rises and walks around the table. As Erik pushes him, slowly but firmly, to his knees, Charles whispers, "Checkmate."


	4. Polyamorous pregnancy fluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "I was reading Ekuni Kaori's Twinkle Twinkle and it gave me a wacky idea; what if Charles, Raven and Erik were in an established polyamorous relationship, and Raven was pregnant with a child fathered by Erik or Charles or may be even both? So, yeah. I assume the love between Charles and Raven would be more brother/sister-like while the rapport between Charles/Erik and Erik/Raven would be more lover-like. I imagine the men being really bossy/fussing over the pragnant Raven and she gets happily annoyed. I don't know. Make it as fluffy, romantic and/or domestic as possible. :)"

Raven lies back against Erik's chest and closes her eyes as Charles' hand massages the cream into her belly. "You like that," Charles murmurs, his fingers tracing the heavy lower curve. "You're flushing darker blue."

By now, they all know what that means. Raven smiles. "Of course I like it. I wouldn't ask you to do it if I didn't."

"But you need this," Charles fusses gently. "You don't want stretch marks."

"Cellular regeneration, remember? Even if I could get stretch marks, I could make sure nobody saw them."

"Very practical," Erik says as he hugs her around the shoulders. "But indulge us for now."

With their trio there's always a question of indulgence, of balance. Raven loves them both (but Charles more.) Charles loves them both (but Erik more.) Erik loves them both (but Raven more.) To some extent, Charles still feels as brotherly toward her as anything else -- sex is mostly about sharing Erik, for him -- and yet it's his baby inside her now, created on a night when they were all so wild for each other that nothing was held back. Raven thinks of it as proof that anything can change, everything can grow, and there's always a way to make this circle stronger.

"I indulged you by eating all the ice cream you brought," Raven says, pretending to pout. "Do you have any idea the level of cellular activity I have to keep up make sure that all goes to the baby instead of my ass?"

"Anywhere you like," Erik says, and his hand briefly runs along the curve of her hip. "You'll always be beautiful to us."

"Always." The depth of feeling in Charles' voice as he says this makes Raven tingle. This began as a warm, cozy evening in -- her in the biggest T-shirt she can find and Erik's pajama bottoms slung long, the boys in their sweaters -- but maybe there's a chance for another kind of heat. She should take advantage of these chances now; the baby's due soon, and after that the long, lazy nights will be much harder to come by.

Still -- they'll find a way.

Charles' palm smoothes higher on Raven's belly, and he tilts his head downward and smiles. "She's dreaming."

Erik laughs -- half-skeptical, half in wonder. He has been no less protective of Raven and the unborn child since an early shiver of psychic awareness made it clear who the father was; if anything, he seems to love them all the more. But not all the love in the world can make him overly sentimental. "Charles, be rational. What can she be dreaming of?"

"It's all very cloudy," Charles murmurs. "No words. No context. She knows nothing but warmth and contentment, now. But -- I think she dreams about what she hears. Our voices, echoing back to her. Just sounds so far as she knows. Still, she likes them."

Raven covers his hand with hers, silently swearing their daughter will never know anything but warmth and contentment so long as they have anything to do with it.


	5. Emma Frost Plays Dirty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "You know the scene, in Russia, Emma goes diamond to avoid giving Charles and Erik intel on Shaw, Erik puts a stop to that and Charles can just read her mind.
> 
> Come the fuck on, Emma's a fierce telepath, she's not just going to give that information up. I like to think that she'd have tried to fuck with Charles' mind first.
> 
> So skimming his mind, she finds out about his interest in Erik and proceeds to fuck with him by projecting filthy fantasies of Charles and Erik together, trying to put him off.
> 
> OR
> 
> Emma projects images of her and Erik, fucks with Charles using jealousy and suchlike.
> 
> Really, I just want Emma to be a fierce bitch. Because I love her."

As the crystal shatters around Emma Frost’s body, Charles winces. The lengths Erik will go to sometimes – they shock him, but it can’t be denied they get results. Still, the sight of a woman twisted up in metal, nearly choked, is disturbing.

He’ll talk to Erik about methods later. Now, they need information, and Emma Frost must give it to him. But for the first time in Charles’ life, he’s facing a telepath nearly as powerful as himself.

He skims along the surface, thinking the information will be very near. They’ve asked her the question; people can’t help but think the answer.

But Emma – she has defenses.

 _Well, well. Who have we here?_ Her amusement crackles along his brainstem, a kind of static electricity he’s never felt before.

 _Just tell us about Shaw._ Charles attempts to be reassuring. _That’s all we want. And you don’t like him much better than we do. That much is obvious._

Emma cries out as the brass bed shifts, releasing her throat but clutching her wrists. Her arms are extended now, her posture almost grotesquely sexualized to push up her breasts. Erik kneels beside her and, to Charles’ horror, forcibly spreads her thighs. His broad hand clutches at her bare flesh, and Charles can see his erection already rigid under his trousers. With a salacious grin, Erik says, “Persuasion can be enjoyable, you know. I’ll make her talk.”

 _This is rape. This is wrong. This cannot be happening. Erik wouldn't -- he couldn't._ Charles must stop Erik, this moment, but in his initial shock can hardly breathe.

Then Emma, instead of protesting, arches her hips to help Erik peel away the flimsy white garment she’s wearing. “Persuade me,” she purrs as Erik’s fingers caress her naked skin. As Erik bends closer, raking his teeth along the curve of her breast, she glances up at Charles. “Show your friend how you like it. He wants to know.”

 _This_ isn’t _happening._

“Charles?” Erik says – from his place by Charles’ side, where he has obviously been standing all along. Emma, who is still fully clothed and bound just as she was originally, cocks an eyebrow. Erik continues, “Charles, what’s wrong?”

“She’s playing games to keep me out of her head,” Charles snaps. The anger is for Emma, not Erik, of course; to judge by Erik’s calm and Emma’s widening smile, they both understand that. “Step back, all right. And if I say or do anything – peculiar – slap me. Snap me out of it.”

“Slap him hard,” Emma suggests. “Charles wants you to.”

Erik doesn’t react. Charles can’t tell if that’s because he isn’t paying Emma any attention or because she only said it in Charles’ own head.

 _There’s no reason for this. Why are you protecting a man you despise?_

 _Why are you ignoring a man you want? A man who wants you?_

And that’s when he feels Erik’s arms slide around him from behind.

Not this, Charles thinks. Not this. Not the fantasy that’s been tearing him up, night after night. The torment he’s lived with as he and Erik travel the world, sharing plane rides and boat cabins and hotel rooms. Yes, he wants Erik desperately, and when Erik’s iron control slips he knows Erik wants the same thing, but they’re both trying to put the work first, the mission first –

“Damn the work,” Erik growls, his breath hot against the back of Charles’ ear. Charles can’t resist a shudder. “I need you, Charles. Now.”

His hand sprawls against Charles’ chest, his belly, down to cup Charles’ already firm cock. Charles’ belt and zipper seem to peel away – Erik’s power? – and then Erik’s skin is next to his, wrapping around him, starting to pump. As Charles starts to tilt his head back, to give in to the sensation of it –

WHAM!

Charles startles to see Erik standing in front of him – not behind – both unaroused and deeply worried. His cheek stings from the slap that must have just been delivered. Brow furrowed, Erik says, “You went away for a moment there.”

God, what did Erik see? What did Charles say? At least his trousers are actually still on his body.

Infuriated and embarrassed, Charles hurls his mind against Emma’s –

\--and there’s Shaw, clear as crystal. Charles could walk straight to him; he has the man’s plans inside and out.

When that image clears, Charles again sees Emma, somewhat petulant but still vaguely amused. “I don’t care,” she says. “Shaw’s scum. Scrape him off your shoe for me.”

“Then why didn’t you just tell us?” Charles demands.

“A girl’s got to have a little fun.” Her eyes flicker back and forth between the two men. “A boy, too.”

**

That night, in the room of their Red Square hotel, long after Erik has used his powers to break the listening devices routinely planted by the KGB in any Westerner’s hotel room, Charles thinks about what Emma said.

She wasn’t giving him advice; he has the feeling “being helpful” is not one of her life goals. She was merely teasing him when she said a boy had to have a little fun.

But the game she played today – it capitalized on one of his vulnerabilities. With stakes as high as these, it’s stupid to leave yourself vulnerable to manipulation.

Erik strips off his undershirt, revealing broad shoulders and tapering waist. The cheap little lamp silhouettes his perfect form on the wall; he might be a pinup in certain magazines that are illegal in Boston. Never taking his eyes away, Charles says, “What was I doing, today? When Emma Frost got into my head.”

“Nothing much. You looked a bit dazed. Flushed, maybe. Why? What was she projecting into your brain?”

Charles suspects that, at the moment, he looks flushed again.

Concerned, Erik sits on the foot of Charles’ bed. As their eyes meet, Charles picks up a wave of the longing they always deny, though it’s nowhere near breaking down Erik’s defenses. “Was it very bad? Can you not tell me?”

Charles swallows hard. “I can show you.”

Slowly he reaches out and lays his palm flat against Erik’s chest. Erik sucks in a sharp breath, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t look away. Only Charles’ powers reveal that this is nearly all it takes to breach Erik’s defenses.

Nearly.

So he closes the distance between them and presses his lips to Erik’s.

When Erik’s arms slide around him, tight and possessive, Charles thinks, _Thanks, Emma._

Then he doesn’t think of Emma Frost again for many hours.

They never do get around to that talk about methods.


	6. Charles Joins The Brotherhood (or does he?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for this prompt: "When Charles turns up one day months after the Divorce saying he wants to join, Erik doesn't think he's ever been so grateful in his life. However not even his happiness can blind him to the fact Charles isn't quite right (acting OOC, extreme head-aches, black outs or memory loss, it's up to you)
> 
> He finds out that Emma, sick of her new bosses tortured psyche and emotional pain, and admiring Xavier's power has brain-washed him into doing so.
> 
> Erik's conflicted, because on the one hand it's everything he wants on a platter, on the other Charles has been mind-controlled and it wasn't really his decision.
> 
> Up to you what he decides, just give me heart-break and angst please!"
> 
> Also serves as my fill for the hc_bingo prompt "parting ways."

The miracle happens only two weeks before they are due to leave for Argentina.

Erik’s been making preparations for months, has sent Azazel and Mystique ahead. He works for 14 or 16 hours a day tracking Shaw’s funds, moving the money to even more untraceable accounts. Or he reviews microfiche versions of every world newspaper in a language he can read (which is a great number of them), looking for reports of unusual events that might point the way to other mutants.

Charles has Cerebro, and his powers. Erik has hard work.

He ought, by rights, to have Emma Frost as well; however, his suggestion that she use her powers in this effort has gone unheeded.

“It comes at a price,” she has said. “What I do.”

“Everything comes at a price,” Erik has replied. He should know.

The hours and hours of hard work exhaust him, make him more tired than he’d known it was possible to become sitting behind a desk. They get him closer to his goal of a band of mutants capable of protecting their kind and eventually putting humanity in its rightful place. They keep him too busy to remember long evenings playing chess in a study flickering with firelight, or afternoons on the school grounds thick with the smell of new-mown grass, or nights in Charles’ bed. They wear him out so thoroughly that he invariably sleeps soundly, beyond the reach of dreams.

So he is sitting at his desk when he hears Angel shout, “Erik – I mean, Magneto, come quick!”

He runs to the door, expecting to see at least an armed strike force at the assault.

What he sees instead is Angel standing at the open doorway, hand to her mouth, eyes wide. And when Erik goes to the door, he sees, just at the bottom of the stoop –

\--Charles. In a wheelchair, quieter, his hair cut shorter than before, but unquestionably the very same Charles Xavier.

And Charles looks up at him and says, “I made a mistake.”

**

“Is this – ” Erik gestures at the wheelchair, hardly able to bear it. “Is it permanent?”

“Barring some radical advances in medicine, yes.” Charles doesn’t seem to care overmuch. “It’s irrelevant, Erik. You know what I have to offer.”

“Of course.”

They sit in Erik’s dark, joyless office. Erik can hardly see Charles in front of him, tormented by his memories of their final meeting on the beach. He’d known Charles was injured, known it was probably serious, but he had never contemplated that the injury might be permanent. Part of him wants to hunt down and kill Moira McTaggart; another part keeps remembering his outstretched hand, the way he flung the bullets aside in anger, without precision, and the terrible sound of Charles’ body falling in the sand.

Yet mixed in with that pain is a joy so vast he hardly dares trust it.

“Why now?” Erik says. “What changed your mind? Where are the boys?” If any of them were ever hurt by the government, or taken advantage of – yes, that might explain Charles’ presence here. But if Hank, Sean or Alex is in trouble, then they need to act immediately.

Charles’ expression clouds – almost as if he doesn’t understand why Erik would ask. “The boys are fine. Absolutely fine.” He puts one hand to his temple, frowning in the way Erik knows means a headache is brewing. “Erik, I’ve been thinking. Since the Cuban Missile Crisis, it’s become more and more clear to me. Mutants – we’re the future. We have to work together, or we will be torn apart.”

That’s not a full explanation, true though it is. But Erik doesn’t push. Maybe restoring deeper intimacy between them will take time.

Then Charles’ blue eyes stare into his, and this is truer than all the rest: “My God, Erik, I’ve missed you.”

Erik smiles just in time to keep himself from breaking down.

**

That night, Erik helps Charles get ready for bed. There are medical necessities to see to, and even small things, like wriggling out of trousers, are now complicated. As they work together, Erik focuses on his hatred for Moira because otherwise he isn’t sure he could get through it, at least not while looking Charles in the face.

He could think of this as penance, if it were not so obvious that the real price is being paid by Charles.

“Does it hurt?” Erik says, his hand brushing over the scar on Charles’ spine.

“Not exactly.” Charles’ voice sounds distant – not cool, but slightly unfocused. No doubt he is exhausted. “The muscles in my back aren’t used to the way I sit now, or the lack of leg movement. Occasionally they cramp – for hours at a go, sometimes.” As Erik tries to process this, Charles glances over his shoulder and says, “You know, this would be a good time to offer me a back rub.”

So Erik takes him to the bed, lays him on his belly and straddles his hips. His broad hands test the span of Charles’ shoulders, the splay of his ribs, and as his thumbs brush along Charles' neck, Erik is rewarded with a soft groan. Then he begins massaging Charles, working the muscles deep, relishing the chance to touch his body again.

Just the sight of Charles there, pale skin against dark-red sheets, his soft brown hair rumpled and a drowsy smile of contentment on his face – this alone is greater happiness than Erik has known in months.

But Erik wants more.

“Charles,” he murmurs, “can we still make love?”

Blue eyes seek his, uncertain but trusting. “You have to be very gentle.”

Erik can’t even answer aloud. He only nods.

“Then yes,” Charles whispers. “Please yes.”

Infinitely gentle, Erik massages Charles until he’s relaxed and pliant. Charles suggests piling the pillows, which they do, and then Erik lays him across them, head now tilted downward. He prepares Charles with care, kissing his back the whole time, running his free hand through Charles’ hair.

“I want to feel what you feel,” Charles says. “I want to know you still want me.”

“Always. Always.”

And yet none of it is real until Erik sinks into Charles again. He goes slowly, so slowly, less thrusting and more softly rocking back and forth – and yet the languid pace has its own exquisite pleasures. There’s time to watch Charles brace himself on his forearms, the better to watch Erik moving over his shoulder. Time to feel the touch of Charles’ mind on his (not the full blazing communion they once shared but a beginning) time to relish every single motion, every single breath. It seems as if a sort of trance falls over them both, as if they were both hovering in that luminous space between arousal and release – on and on, for longer than Erik had known it could last, until finally one wave breaks higher than the rest and carries them over.

Charles cries out in unison with him – one climax for them both, now, and yet it’s enough. So much more than enough.

When at last they are going to sleep, Erik’s head pillowed on Charles’ shoulder, Erik murmurs, “You could have come all the way into my mind, you know. If you’re not ready, I understand, but – I am.”

“It’s different now,” Charles says, which could mean almost anything. But his lips graze Erik’s forehead, so it must not have been a reproof.

“This could never have felt complete without you.”

“Complete,” Charles murmurs, and by now he’s falling asleep. Erik shuts his eyes, and for the first time in months does not fear his dreams.

**

The next morning, Charles is still soundly asleep when Erik rises, quickly throwing on clothes in hopes of going downstairs and bringing breakfast up to him. He is not quite the sort of romantic who would prepare a fancy meal and bring it up in a tray complete with rose in a vase, but Erik likes the thought of keeping Charles to himself a while longer.

As he walks into the kitchen, he sees Emma, who is stirring her tea and looking cross. “It’s no good,” she says.

“The morning?”

“No. Xavier. It’s no good.”

“You don’t approve, I take it.”

Emma gives him a look of withering contempt. “I thought another telepath might be the answer. Somebody who can actually do all the superhuman crap you want without getting migraines that make it feel like the brain’s exploding. But he’s no good to either of us like this.”

The truth falls on Erik like boiling oil. His anger and his horror lock every muscle in place, tighten his throat and steal his breath. It comes out as a rasp: “What did you do to him?”

“Convinced him he wanted to be with you, of course.”

He desperately tries to think of a way out: “You couldn’t. Charles is a stronger telepath than you.”

“And then some.” Emma remains maddeningly cool, even taking a sip of tea before continuing, “But he was trying so hard to convince himself. He misses you too, you know. So I only had to, you know, nudge him over. But the nudge takes away the biggest part of his power, so – we’re out of luck.”

“God damn you to hell.” It takes all Erik’s self-control not to backhand her into the nearest wall.

“I don’t see what the problem is. I mean, he can’t really work for us, but you’re both happy, aren’t you?”

There it is – the ultimate temptation, laid out before him. All he has to do to remain with Charles is … nothing. Let Emma’s mind-control remain in place, bring Charles with him to Argentina, and together they will be partners, friends and lovers from this day on. It’s what Charles wants too, on so many levels; Emma’s efforts would have failed, if it weren’t. There is nothing Erik couldn’t do to make Charles comfortable. To make him happy. He could shower him with a depth of care and devotion that would make up for –

Nothing makes up for stealing a man from himself.

And on one level, Erik has known since he had to remind Charles to think about Alex, Hank and Sean: This man, the one in his bed right now, is not wholly Charles.

“You must end this,” Erik says.

Emma shrugs. “Have it your way. Quick or slow?”

“Do it now!” Every extra moment is torture.

Her eyes narrow. “If I make it sudden, he’s going to wake up in your bed, realize what happened, and know that you spent last night raping him.”

The horror that fills Erik as he realizes the true nature of their last night together is nauseating. His fist closes around the collar of Emma’s shirt as he growls, “Then let him believe that he has changed his mind again. Let him leave with his dignity. Make sure he’ll always believe that he both came and left of his own free will. And if you ever – ever – manipulate me or Charles Xavier in such a way again, I’ll beat you to death with my fists.”

Even that doesn’t wipe away the small, neat smile on her face. “You could just have said ‘please.’” Erik stalks away from her, lest he beat her to death now, before her work with Charles is done. The last words she calls to him are, “What I do comes at a price!”

**

When Erik feels he is steady enough to get through it, he returns to his bedroom.

There, Charles sits on the edge of the bed. He’s managed to dress himself, rather neatly as a matter of fact, but to look into his eyes is to see desolation.

“Erik,” he says, his voice heavy. “There you are.”

“I didn’t mean to leave you alone so long.” The words come out almost natural.

Charles closes his eyes, as if in physical pain. “Forgive me, Erik, but – I shouldn’t have come here. Last night – I can’t explain it, I can’t excuse it, it was weakness and I know I’ve hurt us both – ”

“Don’t,” Erik says, and he wants it to mean _don’t apologize_ but it really means _don’t go._

“I’ve only made it worse. I know that. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Erik nods, tears blurring his eyes.

He goes to Charles, lifts him up, and returns him to his chair. There is nothing more final that the weight of Charles’ body leaving his arms.

As Erik starts to rise, Charles stops him with a hand on one shoulder. By now Charles has begun to cry too. “And there’s no chance – none – you wouldn’t come with me?”

“No.” Though at this moment, he almost could. Erik understands, now, how Emma did this to Charles. It was no great feat; in moments like this they are so close, separated from one another by hardly the weight of one breath.

Accepting Erik’s refusal, Charles nods. But he puts his hands on either side of Erik’s face and swiftly kisses him goodbye. The kiss is the most painful moment, and yet Erik would not change it. Only the kiss was real.


	7. PDA in a different age

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for this prompt: "I'd like a fill where Erik and Charles indulge in some PDA's. Maybe they do so without thinking, or perhaps they do it deliberately to mess with someone. I'd definitely like it if, depending on the onlooker, some PDA's are well received and others definitely aren't.
> 
> The display of affection doesn't have to be anything major - one of them could just take the other's hand, or exchange a goodbye kiss. For all his intelligence and hyper-awareness, I see Charles as being quite the touchy feely sort with people he cares about, and if he's distracted, capable of slipping up and doing something without thinking.
> 
> How Erik reacts is up to you, anon. I tend to feel he's someone who's had to keep his emotions and actions in check since childhood. But even if he is naturally wary, he kind of has that whole "fuck what humanity thinks" attitude too. So, he could either freeze up, freak out, or go with it ;)
> 
> If you want to include the homophobic/illegal aspect of the era go ahead. Or make it AU. Whatever you want, anon."

The first time Charles puts his arm around Erik in public is in a New Orleans nightclub.

They’re drinking beer at one of the outdoor tables, their shirtsleeves rolled up, listening to a brass band wail and thump a tune that makes even Erik tap his foot beneath the table. Summer steaminess lies over the city, a weight that beads sweat along Erik’s hairline and makes Charles open the neck of his shirt.

Later, Erik thinks as he looks at the sliver of Charles’ exposed chest. After they’ve spoken to this musician, seen if he is what he claims to be, he and Charles will go back to their hotel, and he’ll peel off that shirt, lick his way from the neck down –

His thought collapses as Charles slips his arm around Erik’s shoulders, as affectionate as if they were alone. “I like this city,” Charles says. “People are in such a good mood here. All of them, it seems! I need to come to New Orleans more often. It would relax me.”

“Charles.” Erik stares. When Charles just looks back at him, blue-eyed innocence, Erik shrugs off the touch. “Not here.”

“Oh,” Charles says, abashed. How could he have forgotten something so obvious? And yet he literally doesn’t seem to have thought about how dangerous it could be for them to touch in public.

The trombone player turns out not to want to have anything to do with his mutation or other mutants, so they go back to their hotel room empty handed. Erik does precisely what he’d planned to do with Charles’ shirt, but there’s a sadness between them – a reminder of the thing they each hate most: limitations.

**

The first time Charles hugs Erik in public is in front of the kids, after Cerebro very nearly comes crashing down on them both.

“Try upping the current!” Charles cries, and Hank does, but sparks fly and the lights go out and everyone shouts or screams – even Sean, which makes Erik clap his hands over his ears in pain. Something falls, whether from the voltage or Sean’s cry they’ll never know, and for one horrible second Erik thinks it’s going to smash Charles.

But he flings out his hand just in time, and there’s just enough metal in that panel to allow Erik to push it aside.

“Is everyone all right?” Charles staggers from the center of Cerebro, clearly dazed but well. Before Erik can even breathe out in relief, Charles wraps his arms around him. And for a moment, Erik can only hold Charles and be grateful yet again that he is who he is, that he can do what he can do; it’s rarely been worth more.

But ugly reality intrudes after only a moment. Erik opens his eyes to see that only three of the children are looking in their direction. Havok and Darwin are busy helping Angel brush debris from her wings. Sean is staring at them, but blankly; his thoughts are clearly only about his scream and how he just endangered them all. Hank’s face is turned in their direction, but it’s obvious that all he sees is damage to one of his beloved inventions.

Mystique, though – her eyes are wide, gone their natural yellow in shock, and Erik can only think that she must know the truth.

Only when he pushes Charles back, though, does he see her face harden into something like contempt. The embrace only made her question; it was Erik’s embarrassment about it that confirmed her suspicions. So much for all their discretion.

After some talking and calming of the others, everyone begins to disperse, and Erik murmurs to Charles, “You’d best have a talk with her.”

“I know,” Charles says, running one hand through his hair. “Raven’s – she’ll be all right. I’m sure of it. We’ll talk it out, brother and sister.”

Erik thinks “brother and sister” isn’t the way Mystique sees things, or wants to see them. He also thinks Charles not only knows this but is also terrible at dealing with it. So he has his doubts as to whether their conversation clears anything up between them.

For his part, he and Mystique never talk about it. Not once. Even though they will work together for the next 40 years.

**

The first time Charles holds his hand in public, they’re walking down the street in Georgetown. A long day of meetings with their government handlers has turned into a longer night of drinks with the friendlier staffers, including Moira McTaggart, which has in turn turned into the wee hours of the morning. Even this late, though, there are people on the sidewalks.

This is why Erik is oblique as he says, “I think Moira has the wrong idea about you.”

“She doesn’t think I’m devastatingly handsome?”

“Ever modest. The problem is that she does think you’re devastatingly handsome.”

Charles shrugs. “It’s nothing much. A crush, not even a serious one.”

“Still, you ought to tell her she’s not your type.”

“I beg your pardon, but she is.” Charles’ hand finds Erik’s. “I’d ask her out in a heartbeat if I weren’t mad about someone else. I am, though.”

The reassurance is lost under the weight of the glares Erik imagines being thrown in their direction. “Charles,” he mutters, tugging his hand back – but Charles doesn’t let go.

“If anybody sees, I’ll make them forget.”

Charles would know if they were seen, wouldn’t he? Erasure would be instantaneous; the risk should therefore be nonexistent. And yet Erik has the feeling that Charles might not make them forget. That he just – doesn’t care what the world knows about them, doesn’t mind laying bare their greatest vulnerability.

Is that a measure of his courage or his naivety? Erik’s not sure. But he keeps holding Charles’ hand.

Why should they care? What do the opinions of humans matter, anyway? He and Charles are above that. Beyond limitations.

And besides – when he looks over at Charles’ gently smiling face – there’s simply something right about acknowledging, out in the open, the way they feel.

So when they reach their car, even before they get into the relative safety and privacy of the front seat, Erik draws Charles close. It’s the first time they kiss in public, and let the world think what it will.


	8. Erik's Hands, Battered and Bloody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for this prompt:" Something based on this: http://attila-the-hunny.tumblr.com/post/4671207910
> 
> Bare-knuckle fighting, torture, I don't really care. That is my favorite photo in the universe and since I developed a thing for Fassy's hands, I'd love to see something done with it. Could be gen, could be Erik/Charles, you could throw in some h/c, whatever floats your boat. Just, Erik's hands and that photo."
> 
> Also serves as my fill for the hurt/comfort bingo prompt "Self-Harm."

One night, the temperature dips, turning spring back into winter, so they light a roaring fire in the hearth. There's hot chocolate for the students and good wine for Erik and Charles, and everyone winds up sitting around telling funny stories for hours; Erik laughs more than he has ... in years, he wants to say, but possibly ever in his life. Charles sits right next to him on the sofa, their arms and even their thighs sometimes brushing each other, and when their eyes meet, there's no denying the flush of mutual attraction. Yet there's nothing hurried about it, no chance it will turn into one of the convenient, emotionless couplings that constitute Erik's main experience of sex. Erik senses that they're each taking their time. Enjoying the anticipation.

Getting comfortable.

Erik doesn't do comfortable.

He can't sleep worth a damn. For hours that night, he twists and turns in his bed, wondering what the hell he's turning into. The edges he's spent his life honing can't be allowed to go dull.

So before dawn, Erik gets up. In his T-shirt and sweats, he goes to work out -- not in the Danger Room, but in the regular gym, where a full-body punching bag hangs from a chain.

He ought to put on boxing gloves. But what are the chances he'd have gloves in a fight?

When Erik looks at the bag, he doesn't allow himself to see canvas cloth. Instead he imagines Sebastian Shaw, laughing as he did after he had Mama killed.

He punches with all his strength. Punches again. The jar of each hit aches in his joints; the frenzy of speed he builds up burns in his muscles. Shaw never stops laughing; no amount of violence can make the image go away.

So Erik doesn't even see the bloodstains darkening the bag.

***

"Erik."

He hears it at a distance, pays no attention, because he's not pushing hard enough, not hitting hard enough, he hasn't worn his body out yet and as long as he has any fight in him he must _keep fighting_ \--

"Erik!"

The bag swings back and forth on its chain, the canvas surface now smeared and spattered with blood. Erik looks down at the shredded skin of his knuckles for a long moment before turning his head to see Charles, who stands in the doorway wearing pajama bottoms, a T-shirt and an expression of pure horror.

"Didn't even feel it," Erik says, and he smiles with pride.

**

The mercurochrome stings against the cuts, though less than it would for most people; the mercury resonates for Erik even as his eyes water from the sharp pain.

"Now hold still." Charles' knees are on the bathroom tile as Erik sits on the edge of the tub. Carefully, Charles wraps a Band-Aid around each damaged finger, smoothing the adhesive edges down one by one. It's so gentle -- so unlike anything in Erik's experience -- that it both touches and repels him.

He wants to say something stinging. Something to make fun of how Charles is tending to him. But the words don't come out angry: "Kiss it and make it better?"

Charles' blue eyes dart up to his, and for a long moment, neither of them moves. Then Charles lifts one of Erik's battered hands to his mouth and gently kisses one of the bandages.

Erik chokes back something that could be a sob or a laugh, then seizes Charles' face between his hands and kisses him. It's long and deep, not as soft as Charles would have it nor as brutal as Erik attempts. They temper each other. They melt into one another. It goes on and on, until Erik begins to think about pushing Charles back onto the floor and taking him right here.

They break apart. "Not here," Charles chides gently. "The bathroom floor? We can do better than that. Besides - you're exhausted. You're hurt. Let's get you some tea."

"Tea? We can do better than _that._ "

Charles' fingers brush through Erik's hair. "Come talk with me."

Talking to Charles unnerves Erik more than the thought of having sex with him on the bathroom tiles. But he wasted all his fight on the punching bag. "Fine," he says. "And I could use a cigarette."

"Really. Had no idea I was such a good kisser."

Erik laughs despite himself.

***

"What did you think you were doing?" Charles says as he puts the kettle on.

Erik leans his chair back against the kitchen wall. Charles normally doesn't like it when they smoke inside the house, but he hasn't said a word about the Lucky Strike now burning between his bandaged fingers. "Practicing for combat? You know, the way we do most days?"

"We don't beat ourselves to a bloody pulp most days."

"You're exaggerating."

"No, I'm not." Charles walks closer; Erik can't take his eyes from Charles' face, can't stop thinking about the fact that they just kissed, that the taste of Charles' tongue is still in his mouth. Charles brushes his fingers against Erik's wrist. "How much longer would you have gone at it, if I hadn't come in? Your concentration was absolute."

Erik shrugs. "I was imagining Shaw," he says, attempting to keep his voice light. "It was him I was attacking."

"You're the one who's bleeding." Charles sits next to him and brushes his hand through Erik's hair. "I know that Shaw has to be stopped. I know that your hatred of him is righteous. But I can't bear to watch you destroying yourself in an effort to get at him."

"If I have to die to stop Shaw, I will."

"You _don't_ have to. You can stop him and live here, and teach the children, and -- and be with me, if you want. The best revenge is living well, you know. I want you to defeat Shaw with more than your fists. I want you to defeat him by leading the long, happy life he tried to take from you."

Erik sucks on the cigarette, blinks fast, tries not to meet Charles' eyes, but somehow he keeps being drawn back.

Almost in a whisper, Charles adds, "I want him to have nothing. And I want you to have everything."

"Everything?" Erik grips the side of Charles' face, too hard and he knows it, but he can't let go. "Everything, Charles?"

"Oh, yes."

Then they're kissing again, too hotly to hold back for long, and the blaze of sex burns away everything Charles was trying to say, everything Erik was starting to feel.


	9. The Slow Grind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the following prompt: "Charles/Erik; slow, drawn-out, clothed frottage on a couch or motel bed after weeks of UST.
> 
> Bonus: If you can work in banter and breathy noises."

They sit in a hotel bar, like so many other hotel bars over the past few months: A haze of cigarette smoke, Patsy Cline on the jukebox, thickly upholstered booths that muffle the carousing of the other patrons and seal them off alone. Erik drinks his usual martini; Charles takes a whisky sour when he can’t get champagne, but champagne was on offer tonight.

“Champagne of a sort.” Charles frowns blearily at his glass, which is almost empty of all but the last remaining foam. “Technically you’re only supposed to call the stuff from France ‘Champagne.’ Anything else is ‘sparkling wine.’ Except this.”

“And what is this?”

“The 7-Up they serve in Hell.”

Erik laughs despite himself, and Charles smiles, perhaps more at Erik’s expression than at his own joke.

“You smile more often these days,” Charles says.

“I have more reason.”

Erik doesn’t offer his reasons; Charles doesn’t press. But they each lean over the table. Charles’ hands are splayed across the Formica surface as if he owned this place, too; Erik doesn’t even mind.

But even as he decides that, Charles pulls back again, draws his hands in. “Ah. Sorry. Being a bit – king of the manor, I guess.”

“You were merely making yourself comfortable. If I wanted you further back – ” Which he doesn’t – “I’d get you out of my way.”

“No asking nicely?”

“Asking nicely doesn’t go far, in my experience.”

“Perhaps no one has asked you nicely enough.” Charles’ blue eyes meet his for only a moment, before he grins. “And I’ll have you know, it wouldn’t be so easy to get rid of me.”

Erik bolts the last of his martini. He can’t tell whether he hopes he isn’t drunk or hopes he is. “Come on. Let’s get back to the room.”

The concrete walkway along the second floor of the motel circles the parking lot, and the main illumination is the brilliant blue and red neon sign that proclaims their rooms have televisions and air conditioning. An eight-pointed star glitters at the very top. Such extravagance for a dingy motel off Route 66, Erik thinks.

Charles, of course, catches the thought. “They even sell postcards of this place in the lobby, did you see? An artist’s rendering of the swimming pool. The artist must have seen it at some point when it wasn’t breeding algae.”

“Or used his imagination. Artists do, I hear.” Erik can imagine Charles as an artist, come to think of it – a sketch pad on his knee, charcoal between his fingers, wild hair and mad theories. Rather than ask the question, he projects the image so strongly that he knows it will be as real as words. It’s the first time he’s tried that. To judge by the way Charles’ face lights up, he should have tried it before.

“No, I don’t draw, or paint, or sculpt. Anything like that. I appreciate visual arts, but the talent passed me by.” The plastic diamond that dangles from their room key clatters as Charles turns it in the lock. “Besides – I’m not an artist; I’m a fighter.”

And before Erik knows it, Charles has him in a half-Nelson.

“What the – ”They topple to the floor, Erik’s foot kicking the door shut, as Charles laughs; he might be a boy tussling with his brother. Erik’s too startled to be either amused or annoyed. He twists as much as he can in Charles’ grip, which isn’t much; there’s more strength there than Erik would’ve thought. And even a friend shouldn’t have been able to catch him off guard; Charles is truly quick. “What are you doing?”

“I told you it wouldn’t be so easy to get rid of me.” Charles relaxes his grip slightly. “I wrestled in high school and college. Came in second in the state championships my senior year at Andover. Didn’t know that, did you?”

“Hadn’t come up,” Erik mutters in the split second before he slips free of Charles and pins him to the floor, hard. Charles huffs out – a sound split between surprise and discomfort – and Erik immediately says, “Sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just – ”

“I understand. You don’t play.” Charles looks abashed – as if he wanted to escape the moment. Yet he doesn’t move. “With you – I ought to have known better.”

Charles lies beneath him. One of Erik’s legs is snug between his thighs. They’re both breathing fast, and Charles isn’t pushing back against Erik’s hands holding his own against the carpet.

Erik’s pretty sure he’s not drunk. Charles isn’t either. They might each have wanted something to blame this on, tomorrow. But maybe it’s better they do without any excuses. “No. I don’t play.”

He shoves Charles down again, but not as hard this time. Erik’s body slides over his – thigh on thigh, belly on belly. Charles breathes in sharply, and for a moment Erik thinks he’s going to twist away.

But Charles doesn’t do that. Instead he moves against Erik; this time he feels Charles’ cock against his. Only for a moment – through layers of clothes – and yet instantly Erik goes hard. Charles groans softly, his own body responding in turn. The long pressure against Erik’s abdomen is all the encouragement necessary to go on.

Erik begins rubbing back and forth, slowly, so slowly, giving Charles time to match the movement. He does, closing his eyes and letting his head loll back on the floor. The only sound in the room is the friction of their bodies, the rustling of their clothes, and their breathing, growing more ragged by the moment.

Shouldn’t they move from the floor? The twin beds in their motel room are silhouetted against the streetlight streaming through the cheap curtains; it wouldn’t take five steps for them to reach the softness of a waiting mattress. Wouldn’t take five minutes to get their clothes off, so Erik could feel Charles’ skin against his own.

But five steps and five minutes are more than he wants to spend away from Charles right now.

Later, the bed. Later, time for every pleasure Erik knows and a few he intends to invent. Now, this. Nothing but this.

His grip on Charles’ hands gentles, and Charles’ fingers curl around his. Erik turns his face into the curve of Charles’ neck; just the feel of warm, wet breath against his ear is enough to send chills through him. With every push, every rock back and forth, he tries a slightly different angle, slightly more or less pressure, finding what feels best. When he presses down hard, each of them almost directly against each other, Charles makes a hoarse, desperate sound that Erik wants to hear again, and again, and again.

They move no faster, no slower – this is it, exactly the rhythm, exactly what they both want. Charles pulls his hands free to clutch Erik closer to him, his palms against Erik’s shoulders. Erik cradles Charles’ head between his fingers, and his mouth finds the soft skin of Charles’ throat – not a kiss, not a bite either, something in between.

That does something to Charles, something electric. He cries out like that once more – twice – and bucks against Erik as if his body has wholly taken him over. When Charles clutches at his shirt, Erik pulls back enough to watch his face as he comes, open mouthed and eyes screwed shut.

The sight alone nearly brings Erik over the edge. His cock throbs, almost hurting for release, as he thrusts against Charles’ pliant belly, twice, again – and then he’s swearing a blue streak, blind and burning and lost.

His head slumps against Charles’ chest, and he collapses atop him, full weight. Charles doesn’t seem to mind. The wet sticky mess on Erik’s trousers might be his or Charles’; he doesn’t know or care.

“Thought you said you didn’t play,” Charles murmurs.

“That was no game.”

Charles’ hand catches Erik beneath his chin and brings his face up until they’re looking each other in the eyes. “No,” he says softly. “It wasn’t.”


	10. Charles, from the future, is in the mood for angry sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for this prompt: _No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.' - Heraclitus_
> 
> Post-X3 Charles, instead of transfering his consciousness to the coma guy, finds his mind back in the body of his younger self, right after Shaw's attack on the CIA compound, on their way to the mansion.
> 
> The thing: Charles' wants to fix what happened with Erik, but he can't bring himself to do it. He knows that this younger Erik can't be held responsible for his future self's actions, but, nonetheless, here is the man who will paralyze him, who will leave him on the beach, who will turn his sister into a merciless killer. Here is the man who will betray him in the worst way possible, by using him as a tool, a weapon, in his quest to kill all the humans.
> 
> So Charles blows cool and hot towards Erik, and Erik is left wondering where all the UST went and why Charles is suddenly so...emotionally distant, even when they're spending more time together than they used to.

“You’ve been quiet all afternoon.”

Charles can’t even turn around to look at Erik. Of course Erik would come to his room, really their room, because by now Erik’s room at the mansion had become no more than the place where he kept his clothes. This bed, the one Charles is sitting on right now, is the one they share.

It’s not that Charles forgot. He can’t forget one second of his time with Erik, hard though he’s tried the past many years. It’s that he’s spent the entire afternoon overwhelmed by his return to 1962. To memory. To life. He went from the paroxysms of death to coming to in Raven’s arms – young, concerned, caring Raven, wearing the human face he now thinks of as a mask. Alex as a boy – Moira not yet a doctor – his own legs in functioning order – the Everly Brothers on the radio – every bit of it astonishes him with its familiarity and its alienness. There’s no keeping track of it all.

Erik steps inside and shuts the door behind them. Charles still doesn’t turn, though he is acutely aware that Erik is coming closer.

“You’re not angry with me.” Erik’s voice is softer than Charles has heard it in decades. “You always say so when you are. Something else is troubling you, then.”

Angry? What Charles feels toward Erik now goes beyond mere anger. Erik is the man who left him to die at Alkali Lake. The one who saw Charles enslaved by an anti-mutant terrorist and took advantage of that enslavement to try to use Charles to commit an act of genocide. The one …

… the one sitting beside him on the bed now.

Charles finally lifts his face, and the sight of Erik looking at him gently – with love – it nearly breaks him in two.

As tears well in Charles’ eyes, Erik’s expression shifts into alarm. His hands find Charles’ shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid, my friend.” He speaks in a whisper; the sobs he’s holding back steal his voice. “I’m afraid of what’s to come.”

Erik’s eyes widen, and Charles knows what Erik thinks he must mean. Yes, he wants to say, the genocide lies ahead, but it’s in your heart – the enemy is in this room, right now, your enemy and mine both, this man you’ll become –

But Erik says, “You’ve taught me to believe that we can shape the future.” His hand curls around Charles’. “You and I, together.”

For the first time since his astonishing resurrection, it occurs to Charles that because he is really in his own past, he has a chance to change the future. Does he understand what went wrong for him, for Raven, and beyond anything else, for Erik? Can he really undo so much devastation?

He can try. He has to – for both of them, and for all the mutants and all the humans who otherwise will fall in the battles between them.

And still, even now, above all, for Erik. There is no one else he wants to save more. If he can save Erik, he will save the world entire.

Charles kisses Erik fiercely. The depthless anger is still there, simmering beneath the surface – but it’s anger about a crime that hasn’t happened yet, one that he intends to keep from ever happening. So he forces the emotion into the kiss, burning it off the only way he knows how. His tongue forces Erik’s mouth open; his hands grip the side of Erik’s face with such force that it must hurt, and yet Erik doesn’t pull away. Charles’ eyes are shut so tightly that the whole world seems to be red-behind-black.

Erik tries to respond in kind, pushing Charles back against the headboard, but Charles shoves him down on the bed, hard. As Erik stares up at him, startled, Charles says in a low voice, “I need you to give me this.”

Erik’s body relaxes beneath Charles’ grip – a kind of surrender, and trust, that Charles knows Erik would give to no one else. Dear God, he used to be so beautiful.

No. He is so beautiful. This is real. This is now.

Charles lets go of him to tear away his own clothes, as fast as he can. After only a moment’s hesitation, Erik follows suit. That’s fine. He can get himself naked. After that, Charles intends to take over.

And oh, God, Erik’s body – that tapered waist, the lines of muscle across his chest and abdomen and pelvis – just the sight of him has Charles hard in an instant. It’s been decades since Charles could feel this with his body, not just his mind. The pent-up wanting surges into the pent-up fury, blinding and brutal and undeniable.

“Come here.” Charles grasps Erik by the hair, pulling his face down roughly. Erik slides off the bed, onto his knees. Utterly submissive, he lets himself be guided to Charles’ cock, and instantly he opens his mouth, taking Charles in.

The tears threaten to well up again – Charles has missed this so fucking much. Not just Erik, anyone, any feeling like this before his injury muted it. He’s experienced stimulation and orgasm through others these many decades, and that has its own unique sweetness and fire. But nothing compares to his own nerves, his own blood, singing as they respond to the heat and wetness of a willing, eager mouth.

Anyone’s mouth. But this is Erik – that’s what makes this not merely exciting but exhilarating. Nobody has ever compared; nobody ever will.

That knowledge lights the flame of anger within Charles again, and he clutches at the hair right at the back of Erik’s head, holding him fast so that Charles can thrust into his mouth – he wants to get down Erik’s throat, choke him, gag him, make him take it all. And Erik takes it. He wants it. The sound he makes is close to a groan.

 _This is what we were. This is what we_ are.

Charles could come in his mouth right now, but that’s not enough. He pushes Erik back and shudders as he feels the cool air of the room against his cock, still hot and slick from Erik’s spit. His voice so rough even he hardly knows it, Charles says, “Hands and knees.”

Erik doesn’t even climb in the bed, like Charles was expecting; he braces himself right there on the floor at Charles’ feet. His scarred hands are pale against the deep red pattern of the Persian rug. His hard-won muscles outline the span of his shoulders and the tautness of his ass. Erik’s head lowers in total surrender. Anything Charles wants, he’s ready to give. Were they really like this?

Charles needs to prove that they were.

His hand goes to the bedside table and the Vaseline, his muscles remembering the movement before his brain does. Charles isn’t angry enough to do this to Erik without lube or preparation, but he imagines it anyway – the way Erik would tense around him, his hoarse cry of pain. The vision heats his thoughts as he slicks Erik inside, scissoring his fingers, taking care to make sure his fever dream doesn’t come to pass.

The first instant he dares, Charles grabs Erik so hard that his fingers dig into the flesh and the muscle, and he shoves in with one brutal thrust. Erik gasps, almost a shudder, but he doesn’t resist. The sensation makes Charles reel – he’d forgotten how tight this was, how crushing and blazing hot and wonderful. When Charles thrusts again, Erik rocks with it, allowing his whole body to move the way Charles wants.

Charles keeps going, speeds up, takes Erik harder. The slap of their bodies is the only sound in the room except their own ragged breathing, and Charles decides that’s not enough. “Beg me.”

Erik’s response is so low and rough it sends chills down Charles’ spine. “Harder.”

Charles gives him what he asks for. He’s hammering against Erik now, the motion almost too savage to be pleasurable – but the pleasure’s there anyway.

“Please,” Erik whispers. “Touch me.”

Through his lust-maddened haze, Charles can nonetheless sense how desperate Erik is to come – his cock is so hard it hurts. “No.”

“Charles – please – ”

“I said no.” Charles punctuates this with another brutal thrust, one that makes Erik’s knees rock against the carpet until they almost fall to the floor. “Because as soon as I’ve come, you’re going to fuck me, Erik. The second I pull out. You’re going to fuck me even harder than I’m fucking you now. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to hurt me. I want you to break me.”

“Charles – ”

“God damn you, do it.”

“Yes. I will. I will.”

Erik is his, absolutely his, and that knowledge crushes him in its fist. Charles can’t hold back any longer, and he pushes all the way to the hilt in Erik as he comes in a blinding rush. He doesn’t scream, doesn’t groan; it’s too much for him to make any sound, to do anything but let his head loll back as his eyes screw shut.

Just as his cock throbs its last, Erik pulls away from him – the slickness of Charles’ own come sliding down Erik’s ass, Charles’ thighs – and pushes Charles roughly down. Charles doesn’t even try to get to his knees. If Erik does what he needs to, Charles wouldn’t be able to stay up anyway.

Erik preps him, just as hurriedly but thoroughly as Charles did before. This is another experience Charles hasn’t fully known in decades. Every moment of it is oddly unfamiliar – the way his body resists, muscles clenching instead of relaxing, and yet the movement of Erik’s fingers coaxes him further and further open. The in-and-out slip of it reminds him of so much else he’s been missing. Just when Charles is on the verge of swearing at Erik, telling him enough is enough, Erik’s forearm comes down across his shoulder blades, forcing him hard against the floor.

Then Erik pushes one of his legs further out, opening him up, and shoves inside.

Charles cries out, and it’s pain and pleasure at once but mostly astonishment, because he’s felt this through others, even through Erik, but nothing compares to his own body. His flesh being parted. That hardness ramming up into him, striking him right where it makes him blind and crazed.

Erik knows just what to do. One of his hands fists in Charles’ hair – Christ, he even has hair again, hair for Erik to pull as he keeps Charles’ face against the rug. His body pounds into Charles, every stroke a burn that’s scorching Charles from the inside out. He’s so heavy Charles can hardly breathe, so rough Charles knows he’ll be feeling this for days, but he wants to feel it, it’s been too long since he had this – too long since he had Erik. Charles needs the burn. He wants the scars.

More than anything else, Charles needs to know he can still find it in him to trust Erik – this Erik that was – and he can, he can, because Erik’s taking everything from him and Charles doesn’t even want to fight.

He can’t hold back the tears any longer, and as the first sob racks his body, Erik hesitates – but only for an instant. Then he does just what Charles needs him to do; he thrusts even harder than before. There’s no mercy, no stopping, just Erik taking Charles as hard as he can stand, even harder, and Charles forcing himself to take it.

Finally Erik slams in and groans, a deep, shuddering sound. When he slumps to the ground beside Charles, they’re silent for a moment. Charles relishes every ache and sting of his body, every bruise he’ll have tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he will wake up in 1962. He’ll have to start making decisions about what parts of the future he attempt to influence – very little, probably, because larger repercussions are harder to know. But Charles intends to fight for Erik with every bit of knowledge he possesses, with all his guile and all his strength. Erik deserves no less.

Erik’s dark eyes find his. Charles can feel the questions waiting there – _Why like this, why today, what made you so angry, what made you so scared_ – but Erik is wise enough to say only, “Better now?”

Charles manages to say, “I hope it will be.”

“Come to bed,” Erik murmurs. “Rest.” He glances up at the unused bed only inches away. “Maybe we could try it there next time?”

Despite everything, Charles manages to smile. “We can do everything differently next time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a continuation of this scenario and posted it independently, under the title "Undone."


	11. The real reason Charles can't look at blue Raven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the following prompt: _Charles is actually uncomfortable with Raven's true form because he's attracted to her. Much shame on his own part to follow._
> 
>  _Would like to follow the movie, although it can go to AU land._
> 
>  _Can also involve Charles/Erik because why would I say no to that?_

When they were children, Charles couldn’t wait to be alone with Raven, so he could ask her to show her true skin.

“Do it,” he’d whisper as they huddled in the attic, and she would giggle as her skin rippled into the deep blue color of the midnight sky. Charles would imagine that her golden eyes were stars. Sometimes, very daring, he would reach out and touch the scales of her hand or her cheek with his fingertips. They were surprisingly pleasant to the touch – soft and yet very strong, like spider-silk. It was as if her skin touched him back.

One day, when they were just barely into their teens, he brushed his thumb against the skin of her ankle to feel the scales there, and Raven shivered. Charles looked up and saw how wide her eyes were. He realized that his palm was cupping the place were her ankle tapered into her calf, and it was easy to imagine running his hand up farther, beneath the hem of her skirt, all the way up to –

Charles pulled his hand back. “You ought to switch,” he said, trying to be matter of fact about it. “Your eyes went all golden at school the other day. I think you’re out of practice looking – you know – normal.”

Instantly Raven shifted back to her human self. Her skin turned the same pink as his; her deep red hair faded to blonde. She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly to herself. Charles knew he’d made her feel bad, and guilt settled over him – but not nearly as deep as the guilt he felt about what he’d wanted to do with his sister.

When she looked like everybody else, he could control himself. Raven was pretty, but not exactly his type; in fact, Charles was beginning to suspect his type was more often a boy than a girl. So when she wore human appearance, he could love her as his sister and not have to think twice.

As the years went on, he kept urging that human appearance on her. Making it more and more important in her mind – more than it should be. Charles knew how wrong it was to make his sister feel bad about herself in that way, but he couldn’t stop.

Because what he felt when she was blue – that could never be acknowledged.

Never be acted on.

Not ever.

**

This worked well enough until Erik Lehnsherr entered their lives.

Oh, how Erik loved to accuse Charles of being naïve – this, while in the same hour, sometimes the same breath, he claimed not to understand any reason Charles wouldn’t welcome Raven’s mutant appearance.

“You don’t accept her,” Erik would say. “Do you want all mutants to conform to human standards? Human rules?”

“My relationship with my sister is my business,” was the only response Charles could ever muster. If Erik had been listening more carefully, he might have realized how much more was at work – but Erik, for all his intelligence, was not a man who doubted his own judgment.

Nor was he someone who took lovers very often, as Charles found out the hard way. They’d been flirting, and Charles could sense an edge of pure want beneath every word Erik said, so one night in the study Charles pushed the chessboard aside and kissed him. The following ninety seconds of passionate necking were quite possibly the best of Charles’ life. But then Erik pulled away, and started talking about a Mission and a Purpose and Distractions and how they couldn’t risk Their People for a mere love affair. The upshot of it all was that Charles went to bed alone, with a lump in his throat and a hard-on aching for release that was never going to come.

Which meant that he then had to walk around in a state of perpetual sexual frustration, just as Raven started walking around blue more and more often.

 _She is my sister,_ he’d tell himself as his eyes strayed along the neckline of her shirts, or found the deep midnight curve of her calf beneath a skirt. _This is my sister as surely as if she were born to my parents._ He’d always believed that, from the very first night.

He wasn’t sure Raven believed it anymore, though, if she ever had. She kept finding excuses to wander through his room in her nightgown or her bathrobe. Kept cuddling next to him on the sofa or even in the same armchair, insisting he read to her or walk with her or retell old stories they both knew by heart.

Charles wished he could. He liked telling old stories with Raven, and as for reading to her, she was the best audience – expressive and easily delighted. But the feel of her body against his, normally so innocent, turned into something else when she was blue. Something wicked. Something he remained determined to resist.

And yet he couldn’t stop remembering the perfect softness of those scales.

**

Maybe he could have held on forever if she hadn’t walked into his bedroom naked that night.

“Raven.” Hot tea sloshed over the rip of his cup onto his hand, but he hardly noticed the burning. Dear God, her body was – perfect, beyond perfect. Curvaceous hips, softly rounded belly, lean arms and legs, and Jesus Christ her breasts – “What – what are you – ”

“I looked for you in the kitchen first. Guess you took your tea earlier tonight.” She stepped closer to him, as if she were daring him to look at her exposed body.

Charles couldn’t take the dare. He turned his face awkwardly toward the corner as he set his tea down on the bedside table. “Why are you walking around like this?”

“Why shouldn’t I walk around like this? This is who I am, Charles. I’m not ashamed of it. Why are you?”

God, how he’d hurt her. Charles winced. “I’m not ashamed, Raven.”

“You act like you are.” Her voice quivered slightly, but there was no mistaking the gleam of anger in her golden eyes. “Erik says I’m beautiful like this. He says I’m perfection. If beautiful animals walk around without clothes on, why shouldn’t we?”

Erik couldn’t go to bed with Charles, but he could go around complimenting Raven’s naked body. Fantastic. Charles breathed out, trying to get control over at least one of the many frustrations pulling him in a dozen directions at once. “We’re mutants. Not animals. And for future reference, when a man tells you you’re too pretty to wear clothes, you might want to question his motives.”

“It’s not Erik’s motives I wonder about. It’s yours. If you’re not ashamed of me, then why can’t you look at me as I am?” Raven grabbed his face between her hands, and oh, God, the softness of those scales against his cheeks, his throat – “Look at me, Charles. For once in your life, just look at me and tell me – tell me what you see – and tell me the truth, or so help me God, I’ll – ”

It was as if he had to kiss her. As though he were being compelled. His body would no longer listen to his mind or his heart, any of the internal voices saying that this was wrong. Charles covered her lips with his, silencing her words, and when she gasped in surprise he slid his tongue into her mouth. After her first moment of shock, Raven kissed him back – long, desperate and wet.

 _Stop. You have to stop. This will destroy you both._ Charles could hear that internal voice, and yet he didn’t listen. Instead he raked his fingers through her hair, ran his tongue along her cheek, scraped his teeth along her jawline, thrust his tongue between her lips again. Raven pulled him closer so that her full breasts pressed against his chest, and he knew he was sliding over the edge.

If he couldn’t stop them, could she?

“Raven,” he gasped as he trailed his hands down her back, scales tickling his fingertips. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Why not?” she murmured between kisses along his throat.

“You’re _my sister._ ”

“Not really. Not by blood. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me – ”

“But you want me. You want me as a woman.”

Charles groaned as her hands cupped his ass, bolder than he’d ever thought she would be. “Oh, God, Raven – every time I see your real face I want this, and I _can’t_ want this, we can’t do this.”

“ _That’s_ why you wouldn’t ever look at me?” Raven started to laugh, but then there were tears trickling down her cheeks, and Charles found himself kissing them away.

Against her cheek he whispered, “Yes. That’s why. It was wrong of me to pretend otherwise. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay now.”

“It isn’t,” Charles insisted. Once again he pulled back just far enough to see her beautiful blue face. She was still the colors of a Van Gogh, still as lovely and as irresistible as a starry night. “To me you are my sister.”

“Your body says otherwise.” Her eyes flickered down toward his groin; his erection must have been as obvious to her as to him, by now.

“Raven – think about what this means for us – ”

“I’ve shown you my true self, Charles. Show me yours.” Raven slid her arms around his neck and whispered, “Read my mind.”

She’d laid down that rule so long ago that Charles thought of it as inviolate, something he would no more have tried to disobey than the law of gravity. Was she trying to lead him past one taboo by inviting him to break another?

The temptation of reading the one mind that had always been closed to him – that was even more powerful than his lust for her body, and Charles wasn’t sure he could resist either.

As they held one another, breathing hard, staring into each other’s eyes, Charles found the shields he always kept up around her – second nature to him now, difficult to even recognize consciously – and somehow let them fall.

Instantly he was enveloped in the blast-furnace heat of Raven’s desire – all-encompassing, for his body, his soul, his conversation, his touch, his kiss –

And he was done for.

Charles pushed her down onto the bed, covered her body with his own. Raven arched against him as she tugged his sweater up; he took his arms from her just long enough to let her pull it off him and throw it away. Then his bare chest lay across hers, and the silken feel of those scales – as delicious as they were to his hands, they were even more amazing against the flesh of his body. As if from a great distance, he heard himself moaning as he pushed one of her legs up toward her shoulder, the better to grind himself against the softness between her thighs.

Raven whimpered. “Charles – please – ”

It felt so good to be wanted. To be welcomed without reservations, despite the barriers between them, right and true as those barriers were.

Charles lowered his mouth to her breasts, wild to know what those scales would feel like against his tongue. They tickled slightly – but they were pliable, soft, delectable in his mouth. Even Raven’s skin tasted different: more sweet than salty, with a richness not unlike caramel. Though in her natural state she had no nipples, the peaks of her breasts were apparently still exquisitely sensitive; as he sucked at her, Raven cried out, clutching at his hair, his shoulders, the waistband of his trousers.

 _Stop this,_ he told himself. _You know you should stop. She’s your sister – probably a virgin – this shouldn’t be her first time, this can’t ever happen._ But that internal voice was almost meaningless to him now.

Her fingers tugged at his belt buckle, and Charles let go of her long enough to help her get his slacks off. As Raven saw him naked for the first time, her eyes widened, and the rush of emotions he felt from her (surprise, fear, longing) confirmed what he’d suspected; she’d never made love to a man before. That should have stopped him if nothing else would.

It didn’t.

Charles knelt at the foot of the bed and seized her at the hips, pulling her down toward him. “Open your legs for me,” he whispered. “Wider.”

“Oh – okay.” Her thrilled embarrassment washed through him along with the stroke of pure heat he felt as he breathed in the scent of her. With his fingers he brushed along the scales between her legs; the scales parted, revealing the dark blue slit he sought. And there, just above it – the deepest blue of all –

He set to work, licking, sucking, tracing along her with his tongue, all the while reveling in the rush of thought and emotion pouring out of Raven. Every time something felt good, he did it again. How did she taste even better now? But she did. Within moments Raven had gone from virginal awkwardness to pure abandon, rocking back and forth against his tongue and crying out so loudly that half the mansion had to know what they were doing.

 _Does Erik know?_ The question didn’t have the power Charles would have suspected. Erik was far away now, along with Charles’ inhibitions and his morality. For now there was nothing but him and Raven.

When she came, the sensation of it flowed from her into him – long, sweet, languorous waves, not one spike but a dozen caresses, a kind of ecstasy only women got to experience … and Charles, happily enough. As he felt it along with her, he sent back his satisfaction; her hand reached down to cover his where it was braced against her pelvic bone.

“I knew,” she whispered. “I knew you would be like this.”

“I should stop.” Charles tried to clear his head, if that was even possible with the rich caramel taste of her on his tongue. He took a couple of deep breaths, as if the air might brace him, but it was thick with the scent of her sex. “Raven, let’s stop.”

“I don’t want to stop.”

“It’s not too late to – ” But it _was_ too late, far too late, and he was a fool to pretend otherwise. Even now she was guiding his hand down from the curve of her pelvis to the dampness between her legs – pushing two of his fingers inside her, so he could feel that all-encompassing heat. More than that, he could sense her thoughts, the crazy yearning she had to feel all of him, take all of him, now, please, Charles, now –

He crawled onto the bed, helpless, hopeless, her slave. This was the greatest sin he had ever committed, and he knew it and he was going to do it anyway. Charles pushed her thighs up toward her shoulders, angled himself and thrust inside.

Her cry of delight almost drowned out the thought in his head – _my sister_ –

Then she rocked her hips beneath him, urging him on, and he was lost.

Charles couldn’t even be gentle – her first time, and yet he couldn’t hold back. She didn’t want him to, though; her fierceness astonished him nearly as much as it aroused him. Even as he pumped into her, she matched him, stroke for stroke. As he pinned her hands on the bed, her dark eyelids closed over her glittering eyes as her face contorted into a grimace of pleasure.

“Don’t want to – ” Charles panted. “Don’t want – to hurt you – ”

“You won’t. You can’t.” Raven pulled her legs up farther, let him in even deeper, defying any caution. “I want all of you. As much as you can give me, I can take.”

So he let go entirely, taking her as hard and as fast as his body allowed, reveling in the sheer delight coming off her in waves. His fingers fisted in her glistening red hair, and he buried his face in the curve of her neck as he thrust harder, harder again, so close now to the very edge –

He made no sound and yet it was like screaming. Stopped moving and yet was torn to pieces. Reached the heights and yet knew that he was falling down endlessly into her.

When Charles knew anything again, he was lying across Raven’s chest, folded in her embrace. She stroked his hair as she whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said. It was no less than the truth. “But I don’t know how we make this work.”

“Just like we did before.” Raven giggled against his forehead, her lips brushing his brow. “Except every night.”

She was so in love with him – so recklessly, heedlessly in love. Charles could feel it all around him, though it weighed him down even more with guilt. He hadn’t just used his sister’s body; he’d used her heart.

And yet – couldn’t he try? For her? Despite the shame of what he’d just done to Raven – and maybe, perversely, because of it – this was the single most erotic experience of his life. If she remained blue from now on, then he would always want her. In time, maybe she would be no more his sister in his mind than he was her brother in hers.

He wasn’t in love with her. Once more he thought of Erik’s face, their too-brief kisses next to an abandoned chessboard.

But he loved her, and maybe the rest would come in time.

After tonight, Charles thought he owed Raven no less.

“Every night,” he repeated. When she kissed him, he closed his eyes.


	12. Sex on the Staircase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the following prompt: _Charles gets up in the middle of the night in his boxers to get a glass of water and runs into fully dressed, turtleneck clad Erik while walking down the stairs. Sexual tension rises and hot kinky stair sex ensues._

Erik sits up late that night, long after Charles has excused himself, after the kids drag themselves back to their separate rooms. He puts out the fire, but remains in the great chair in front of the hearth nursing a brandy and staring into the dying embers.

In the few moments of honesty he allows himself, he knows he is afraid to go upstairs. But for the most part he clouds his mind in the usual ways – testing his power against the poker and shovel, or brooding over potential revenges upon Sebastian Shaw. When he thinks about these things, he becomes focused. Single-minded. Erik is again the man he knows how to be, and living the only life he ever prepared to live.

Finally, though, the last embers die, and not even Erik can deceive himself into sitting in front of a pile of ash for long. He rises, stretches, and begins the climb upstairs to his own bedroom –

\--only to see Charles descending the staircase clad in nothing but an undershirt and boxers.

“Oh.” Charles blinks sleepily. “I thought you’d gone up already.”

“You weren’t coming down to find me?” Erik’s paranoia is no weaker around Charles after their trip earlier this week; if anything, it’s stronger.

“I was coming down for a glass of water, actually. Forgot to take a tumbler up with me.” Charles rakes one hand through his rumpled hair. “Earlier tonight, I’d hoped you would come up to find me – but no such luck.”

Erik can no longer look Charles directly in the face. That makes matters worse, though, because his eyes instead dart to Charles’ chest, wiry beneath the thin white cotton of his shirt, or his bare legs. That reminds him of two nights ago in Boston – of what happened there – something that must never happen again, and yet something Erik so desperately wants to happen again that he can hardly breathe –

“It’s all right.” Now Charles sounds far more awake. “I’d hoped you and I – that we’d go on together – but if you’re still not sure, I can wait.”

“You want to _wait_ for me.”

Charles cocks his head. “I want to take you right here, right now. But if I have to wait, I will.” He grins, no doubt aware of the surge of heat that rushed through Erik at the words take you. “I know this doesn’t come naturally to you.”

“What’s that? Homosexuality?”

“No. Well, that too. We do seem to bring it out in each other, don’t we?” How dare Charles look so pleased with himself? The last time Erik saw him looking like that was in the hotel bed in Boston, when they were still tangled up together, sticky with each other’s sweat and come. “What I meant, though, was – letting your guard down. With a lover, particularly.”

It’s appalling to stand here and be psychoanalyzed. Even more appalling is the fact that Charles is correct.

Charles says, “When you’re ready, Erik. I’ll be waiting, and I’m not going anywhere.”

The words are so confident. But the almost imperceptible catch in Charles’ voice tells Erik something he hadn’t known until now: Charles is as vulnerable to him as Erik is vulnerable to Charles. He wants this just as much – more, perhaps. Erik can wound him as badly as he can in turn be wounded.

If they can break each other, then maybe it’s safe to love each other.

Erik rakes his eyes up and down Charles’ disheveled body again, but this time he’s avoiding nothing. No doubt sensing the change in mood, Charles straightens.

“I believe you said something about here and now?” Erik murmurs.

Charles breathes out, a shaky sound that rocks Erik to the core. “Anywhere you like. Including here. And now.”

Two quick strides up the stairs brings Erik to the step beneath Charles – where they are the same height, and Charles’ mouth is even with his own. He waits there, letting Charles be the one who leans close, the one who asks for the kiss.

Erik grants it.

Their lips come together, one gentle kiss that breaks the dam, and then they’re wild for each other, devouring each other, kissing so fiercely that their teeth cut at their lips and Erik knows they’ll feel bruised in the morning. He wants to leave a mark – to know that Charles feels the sting the same way he does.

Charles’ hands find the hem of Erik’s turtleneck sweater, and Erik lifts his arms so Charles can tug it away. That’s the last time he intends to let go of Charles. He rakes his fingers beneath the thin cotton T-shirt, under the elastic waistband of the boxers, so that he can caress Charles chest, and his ass, and finally his stiff cock. It pulses in his palm – already slick at the tip, so ready – and Erik growls in pure animal satisfaction.

He pushes Charles backward, not hard enough to make him fall, but enough to get Charles to lower himself onto the stairs until he’s half-sitting, half-stretched on the broad steps. His erection pushes against the cotton of his boxers, a glimpse of flesh in the fabric’s slit; he would look almost comical if not for the dazed lust on his face, and the way that makes Erik feel.

Now – something Erik’s never done before. Charles tried it for the first time in Boston, and went from clumsy uncertainty to mastery in what seemed to be mere seconds. Erik had been helpless, ecstatic, stifling his cries against the pillow and utterly at Charles’ mercy.

It’s Charles’ turn to be at his mercy.

Erik kneels on the lower stairs between Charles’ splayed legs, gets Charles’ cock out of his boxers and dips his head to take him in his mouth.

It tastes better than Erik ever dreamed it could. Feels more right. He doesn’t even have to think about what to do for Charles; he knows.

“Oh – ” Charles gasps. His head thumps softly against the carpeted stair; his thigh muscles tense beneath Erik’s hands. Within Erik’s head, there’s a gentle sensation – indescribable in any real physical sense, but perhaps like a breeze against bare skin, or warm water lapping in a bathtub. He’s learning to recognize this as the touch of a psychic’s mind. But Charles manages to speak aloud, however raggedly: “Let me in, please, Erik, for both of us – let me in – ”

Erik said yes, in Boston. The experience was almost too overwhelming to be borne. But Erik doesn’t like to think there are limits on what he can bear. _Yes_ , he thinks so strongly that he knows Charles will hear, while his mouth is still working Charles’ cock. _Yes._

The pleasure begins to pour over Erik, a honeyed libation from Charles’ mind, and it only makes him more eager. His arms frame Charles’ torso as he works at him, tongue and teeth, and then Charles is pumping between his lips, salty-slick and on the verge. Erik slows, sensing this is when Charles wants to take over. He can feel it, as surely as if he were the one being sucked off, as if Charles were the one servicing him. Charles’ hand grips the side of Erik’s face as he fucks his mouth, shallow and fast; in Charles’ mind Erik feels the waterfall of incoherent half-thought that comes before orgasm – yes Erik please like that just like that yes please Erik yes –

Then Charles is coming, silent except for the exaltation in his mind, and Erik revels in drinking him down. The sensation hits him – not his climax, but shared so fully there’s no difference, and then his own body responds the only way it knows how. Instantly he’s awash in pleasure, swimming in it, submerged.

When he finally lifts his head, Charles looks utterly, beautifully wrecked. His pale skin is flushed, now glowing with the first sheen of sweat. He manages a dazed smile. “I think we’re making a fantastic start on this, you know.”

Erik laughs despite himself.

“Not that this hasn’t been amazing,” Charles pants, “but maybe we could take this to my bedroom now? If we wind up with muscle cramps, it’s going to seriously curtail my plans for the evening.”

Erik manages to rise and offer Charles a hand. “Tell me more about these plans.”

They go up – pausing only to collect Erik’s turtleneck – to begin the long work of learning how to love and break each other.


	13. Erik's "first time" didn't go well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the following prompt: _Erik's first sexual experience. I want it to be pre-XMFC (because I can't see that suave mutant as still being a virgin over 20, much less 30). Minimal mush/fluff - I don't exactly want it to be dark, but Erik's this messed up kid with a lot of anger, so I don't see him as being all goo-goo eyed. Don't care if it's with a man or a woman._
> 
> This is maybe more "goo-goo eyed" than anticipated but it's not exactly what you'd call bliss.

“You lost your virginity to another man?”

“A boy, really.” Charles stretched himself, then lolled back on the pillows, better to watch Erik cross the room for a tumbler of water. The moonlight painted the lines of his body, striped him in shadows, and even though Charles now knew every inch of Erik by touch and taste, he still liked to look. “We were 16. It might as easily have been just messing around – you know, the way boys do – but then somehow it was more. It meant something, and we both knew it. Scared the devil out of me, really. Him too, I think. We basically ignored each other from then on. Pretty sad as first love affairs go.”

“So you knew from the start that you preferred men.”

“I knew that I liked them.” Charles didn’t like the word preferred; he enjoyed sex with women just as much. But saying so only a few weeks into his romance with Erik – what he already knew would be the great romance of his life – it seemed somehow unkind. “What about you?”

“I suppose I always suspected. But it took me longer to really understand myself that way.” Erik tilted his head back to gulp down some water. Charles watched his throat pump hungrily and felt another stirring of pure physical need.

“So that means your first time was with a woman.”

“A girl. Magda.”

Saying her name conjured an emotion from deep within Erik, vibrating within him like a plucked guitar string. The wave of tenderness and grief swept through Charles, past him, filling him with curiosity. Protectiveness. Jealousy.

The protectiveness won out, which was how he knew he was in love.

“We needn’t talk about it if you’d rather not.” Charles gently smoothed the sheets next to him. “We should rest.”

Erik remained where he stood, frowning, deep in thought. Slowly he said, “I’d like to tell you. If you’d like to hear.”

Charles never pried in Erik’s mind any longer – mostly because he knew Erik didn’t like it, but also because there was nothing so sweet as this, these moments when Erik revealed himself only because he wanted to.

Again he patted the bed. This time Erik rejoined him, but instead of lying by Charles side, he sat there, legs drawn up beneath him. His gaze was far away.

“I knew her as a little boy. Her eyes – large, dark. Beautiful. Very thin and very timid. She always made me think of a fawn. I loved her before I had any idea what love was. I learned it by loving her.”

Charles remained silent. He knew Erik would value that more than any platitudes he could offer.

“Magda was taken to the camps, like I was. At first I didn’t see her. I assumed she’d been killed right away. A fragile little thing like that – what chance did she have? But then, just as Schmidt – as Shaw was giving me more freedom, believing he had me conditioned to obey, I saw her. Skin and bones, and yet more beautiful to me than ever before because she was alive. Somehow she was still alive. When I broke out, I took her with me. We made our way through hell together. What food I could steal, I stole for her. Sometimes I think the only reason I survived those final months was because I knew she wouldn’t survive without me. We slept side by side under the one coat we had. And yet I never touched her then. Never even kissed her. She was too sacred to me, and I thought it would hurt or scare her. I needed her to know that I saved her for herself alone.”

A long silence followed. Charles only now realized how little he knew of Erik’s life between Shaw’s murder of his mother and his adult career as a Nazi-killer. He’d caught glimpses, but they were fragments and images, no more, and meaningless without context. When he finally thought it was all right to ask, he said, “Then what happened?”

“Then I married her.”

The shock struck Charles more deeply than it should have done. Apparently he wasn’t above being jealous, at least a little.

“We were hardly more than children,” Erik’s voice was very soft now. “Not yet 18, either of us. Both of us virgins. I had hardly done more than kiss her even on our wedding day. I thought it was more – respectful. Loving. It was the stupidest thing I could have done.”

“What do you mean?”

Erik swore under his breath. “I knew nothing. Nothing. My father was never able to talk to me, man to man. I’d never had a youth to play around, experiment. Never even had a chance to read dirty books. I had no idea how to please a woman. Hardly any idea what pleased me, and I thought – I thought surely we would get to bed, and I would touch her, and it would all be made right. Instead – my God, for myself I don’t care, but I hate that it was so bad for her.”

The images flowed into Charles’ mind then, so freely that he knew they were being given. Erik was willing for him to see this – intimate and painful though it was. As much as it hurt Charles to witness, he would never dishonor such a gift.

So he saw.

 _Erik still in his pajamas, Magda in a white nightshirt so large it nearly swallowed her whole. Her body trembling beneath Erik’s touch, not from desire but from fear – she’d been denied a mother’s wisdom just as Erik had been denied a father’s –_

 _Pinching her breasts, feeling the first stirring of real lust he’d ever known for her, but confused when she winced. How had he hurt her? Was he being too rough? Taking his hands away, even though he had no idea what else he might do for her._

 _Parting her legs, nearly as afraid as she was. The shaking of her thighs – the way she bit her lower lip so hard it bled –_

 _Her arms clenched tight at her sides, her fingers plucking at the sheet beneath them, as Erik tried to position himself, unsure if he was doing this as he ought –_

 _His cock ramming awkwardly against her, then into her – and the sheer white-hot pleasure of it startling him for the one moment before he heard Magda’s cry of pain. But it was supposed to hurt the first time, even he knew that, so Erik kept on, pushing harder until he was as deep as he could go, and by then Magda was sobbing._

 _The horror of feeling pleasure while she cried in pain. The terrible guilt with which he thrust into her, and even though he came fast, so fast, it felt as if he’d been torturing her forever._

 _“I’m sorry, Magda – it will get better.”_

 _“Maybe I’m a bad wife. Maybe I should not have married at all.”_

 _“You didn’t do it wrong. It was me.”_

 _“No, it’s me.”_

As the images faded into dingy memory, Erik sighed. “Do you know, that night, I didn’t even think to tell her I loved her? That much at least I could have given her.”

“Is this what you’re tormenting yourself about?” Charles pushed himself up to sit beside Erik. “You said it yourself – you were a boy who had no experience, no guidance. You knew no better. And you did love her; I’m sure Magda knew that.”

Slowly, Erik nodded. “She knew. Maybe not in that hour, but – she knew.”

Charles leaned his head against Erik’s shoulder, as if he were the one seeking comfort; Erik found it easier to protect than to be protected, he thought. Erik’s arms folded around him, and for a while they remained like that, still and uncertain.

At last Charles ventured, “Did it get better?”

“Yes. It was never what it ought to have been; the older I got, the more I understood why I didn’t feel passion for her to match my love. But I loved her so much despite that. She understood me well, cared for me dearly. We got on. If she wanted a simple life in the country, then I would give it to her. When our daughter was born – our Anya – it was the first time I really knew joy. It might have been enough.”

The astonishment of hearing that Erik had fathered a child was dwarfed by the horror of understanding why she would be spoken of in the past tense. “Oh, God. Erik. I’m sorry.”

“They died together,” he said, and it was clearly the only explanation he ever intended to give. Instead of the flood of images and memory Erik had revealed before, Charles was met by a kiss. Then another. Hard and sharp-edged kisses – kisses that wanted to blot out the past and forget everything –

Charles’ heart bled for a child he’d never met, for a woman who might have kept Charles from the man he loved and yet who should have lived and had that chance. If he were hurting like this, how much worse must it be for Erik? Shouldn’t they talk about this more?

Then he thought he’d trust Erik’s own judgment about what he needed, and Charles let himself be borne down to the bed.


	14. Erik has cancer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the following prompt: _So we've had some beautiful Charles has cancer fills/stories floating about. Now it's about time to flip the tables._
> 
>  _What kind of cancer, if it goes into remission or not, if this is cannon, cannon AU, or modern AU is up to you._
> 
>  _tl;dr Erik has cancer, the details are up to you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For me, personally, this is the epilogue to my story "The Winter of Banked Fires," but feel free to consider it a thing on its own.

Erik opens his eyes. He’s not sure how long he’s been asleep.

Their bedroom is exactly as he recalls it; there’s a fire crackling in the hearth, his bathrobe tossed across the corner armchair, and their chessboard set up, waiting for the next game. As he turns his head, he sees Charles sleeping a few feet away from him – close, relatively speaking, as this bed alone is bigger than any bedroom Erik’s ever had on his own. Charles’ hair is dark against the white linen pillowcase; there’s a little line between his eyebrows, as though he is concentrating hard, even now.

Which of course he is.

His arm feels very heavy as he reaches toward Charles. Even before Erik touches him, Charles stirs, opening his eyes. “You’re awake.”

“More or less.” Erik lets his hand drop onto the bed; Charles takes it. He is so much warmer than Erik. “You’ve been working too hard.”

“I’m fine,” Charles insists.

Erik glances around the bedroom. “I was expecting another of your exotic locales. That beach with the white sand – something like that. But it’s good to be at home.”

Though Erik took to calling the mansion “home” again a few years ago, there is still a surprised warmth in Charles’ voice as he says, “Yes.”

Erik remains tired, so very tired. The glow of the fire and the warmth of Charles’ body as he snuggles closer are lulling him back toward slumber, but he has a few things to say first. “It’s easier for you. Showing me where we really are, changing it only a bit.”

“Of course.”

“This is taking a lot out of you then.”

“No more than I can manage.” But Charles’ blue eyes fill with worry. “Are you in pain?”

“You’re holding it off, mostly. It feels only like this … incredible heaviness.” Erik takes the deepest breath he can manage, but it catches raggedly in his throat. “Promise me you’re not taking the pain for me.”

“You know that I would.”

“Charles. I don’t want that.”

“I promise you, I’m all right. It’s like you say. Heaviness. Shadow. Not real pain.”

The unspoken final words are _not yet._

Even a telepath as brilliant and skilled as Charles cannot hold the agony of advanced metastatic cancer at bay forever, and no matter how many times he’s made Charles swear not to endure it himself, Erik feels certain that, when it came down to it, he would. But Erik thinks Charles will be spared that particular burden. This moment of clarity … he’s seen it in others, just before the threshold. It doesn’t last long.

“Have you made us younger to please me?” Erik murmurs.

“That’s me being selfish.”

“Why?” He cocks an eyebrow, which is as close to being rakish as he can manage. “Do you want to admire my body? I was a sight to see. I’ll admit it.”

Charles smiles slightly as he strokes one hand through Erik’s hair; the touch is so vivid, so comforting, that Erik knows that touch is real. “The view is nice. But mostly – I’m pretending we’re at the beginning.”

Instead at the end, which is where they are.

Erik wants to comfort him, but how can he? But he tries. “You know, given the number of people who’ve tried to kill me over the years – starting with Adolf Hitler – I think dying as an old man, of pancreatic cancer, warm in my bed, counts as a victory.”

“It does, my love.”

The greater victory is dying in the arms of someone who could call him that. This is something Erik wouldn’t have understood before a few years ago, before he and Charles reconciled. But that reconciliation came so late – very nearly too late –

“Not too late,” Charles says. Erik’s thoughts are laid before him, of course; if they weren’t, this illusion would vanish, and the pain would crush all coherency from Erik’s mind in an instant. “We were just in time.”

“I regret the wasted years.”

Charles’ hand closes around his, squeezing insistently. “Please, don’t. The years we didn’t have don’t matter as much as the ones we did.”

One year in the beginning, six years at the end: That’s all. But sometimes the decades in between just feel like other stages of their strange and tangled romance.

“I know, Charles. I do. No matter how much time I’d had with you, I would have wished for me.”

Erik coughs, though it’s not the kind of coughing he’s used to; it’s as if his body is fighting not blockage but breath itself. Charles isn’t clear to him for a moment – neither is the room, himself, anything – and though it passes, he thinks it won’t next time. As their cozy bedroom coalesces around him again, Erik looks on it with all the gratitude that comes from knowing he is here for the last time.

But Charles. He looks stricken. Though the illusion of his younger face remains, his eyes are old and filling with tears. It is the last cruelty of their relationship, the one Erik cannot help: He must leave Charles behind.

Not alone, though. “You’ll call Ororo,” he rasps. Not even Charles’ mind can lift the husk of death from his voice now. “Right away. And Kurt. Some of the others. They’ll come to you.”

Charles nods. It helps to think of him surrounded by his students and friends, to know that Charles will go on. Even if Erik is gone, Charles will still have purpose, a home. He will still be loved.

That’s what Erik needs to let go.

He whispers, “Tell Mystique, when you can. Let her know I’m sorry.” No need to say for what. She can apply it to whichever of his sins she chooses.

“Of course.” Charles is crying openly now, and his face is becoming his real one. All his strength must be needed to spare Erik the pain of the final passage.

“I never thought – never cared much about – an afterlife.” Even words seem heavy. “For my own sake, I still don’t much care. But if there is one – I’d see my parents again. I’d like that.” It’s unbelievable how comforting that is, the thought of them on the other side of a great dark door. They seem more real to him now than they have in many years.

Charles kisses Erik’s forehead, his cheeks. The sensation is distant, but Erik knows it’s happening. It mingles with the memory of so many other kisses and, despite everything, makes him smile. “I hope so. Oh, Erik, I hope it’s so.”

Erik tries to speak, but the cough is back – a rattle, now. Instead he thinks the words, knowing Charles will hear: _The last six years were the best of them all._

“For me too,” Charles whispers.

 _I love you_ , Erik thinks, but the thought fragments like the colors in a kaleidoscope, swirling around into different shapes, and all he knows then is that he’s safe and warm, that nothing hurts and he is loved. In this knowledge he closes his eyes, happy to be able, at long last, to sleep.


End file.
